


Equal Exchange

by Bookwrym



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A/U, Endgame fix, Gen, I have no idea what I'm doing, My First Fanfic, No Beta, Out of Character, Temporary Character Death, Vormir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22782253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwrym/pseuds/Bookwrym
Summary: What if Clint and Natasha fell together on Vormir? It's ment to be a soul for a soul after all.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov
Kudos: 12





	Equal Exchange

I do not own The Avengers or any associated characters. They are owned by Marvel, Disney and other very large companies that I don't want to sue me. 

(If I did own The Avengers I don't think 'Endgame' would have ever existed as Thanos would have died on Titan and no one would have been snapped.)

Johann Schmidt, Red Skull as he was better known, had seen many things over his years as the guardian of the Soul stone. He had seen people fight against being dragged over the edge. Seen them fight against against one another, sometimes neither winning, to not be the one that would be the sacrifice. Never before had he seen two people fight to be the one who gave their life. It worried him, this selflessness. Always before there had been greed, a desire for power. Not here though. Not now. When they both went over the edge he felt his non existent breath stutter.

*****

Clint caught the line from his grappling arrow in his right hand and Natasha's hand in the left. Looking down he could see the determination in her eyes. She wasn't going to let him die so that ment she had to. Her eyes told him that she believed this would finally settle the red in her ledger. That she thought that this was, "whatever it takes."

"Let me go Clint."

"No, Nat." Natasha's lips firmed at that. She somehow got purchase on the rock wall with her feet and kicked out. His grip on her hand faultered. He could feel his grasp on the wire of the grappling line cutting into his right palm in spite of the palm glove he wore. Her hand slipped from his as she kicked her legs out a second time. The pain from his right hand had him losing his grasp on the grappling line and falling seconds behind her.

He narrowed his body down as a sky diver who wanted to meet a part might. And meet Natasha he did. Only then did Clint allowed himself to flatten out. "Together or not at all." He ground out unsure if she heard him,but thinking she did by the tears in her eyes.

They hit the bottom together. Their bodies lay along side each other, their palms touching.

Vormir shook. Dust rising from it's desolate surface. Rocks falling from the harsh terrain. Overhead in the purple sky clouds massed and flashed with lightning in a way they never had before.

It had ALWAYS been the rule of a soul for a soul. An equal exchange. Now though there were two souls. Both arriving at the same time and for the same odd reason. To obtain the stone. Not for power, but to restore the balance. It was odd to say the least.

*****

Natasha and Clint woke in a shallow lake with an orange sky above them and orange all about them. The only feature was a strangely oriental arch in red that lay in the middle of the lake.

"Any idea where we are?" Clint posed.

"Aside from dead, none whatsoever." At Natasha's deadpan response Clint rolled his eyes.

"You are in the Soul Relm." A blond haired woman wearing a green gown informed them. Her hair was orenately styled with numerous ringlets and a duo of braids forming a crown about her head. She looked regal and yet comforting, which though neither of them knew her. "The two of you have done something remarkable." 

"Er, what?" Clint asked for both of them.

"You came together. The rule was a soul for a soul. NOT two souls for a soul. Together you have broken a curse as old as Asguard."

"Asguard?! How would you know about Asguard?" Natasha queried.

"I was Queen Frigga." At this reply the two prior SHIELD agents exchanged a shocked look. Thor's mother, a woman both of them had never expected to meet.

"So what happens now? Does some greater force decide who lives and who dies? Do you? Or are we supposed to make that choice, when we so obviously couldn't before?" Clint demanded, completely done with the whole situation.

"None of that. It is rare for an individual to have only half a soul, but it is possible. That is what has happened to the two of you. Both of you lost half of your soul, so neither will have to die." Frigga have the two of them a hard look. "You will need to remain within the same country until the Soul stone is returned by BOTH of you. Only then will you regain what you have lost." A small pause threaded through her words. "Though you will always feel a connection due to what you have done.". She reached out a hand and opened it. In her palm was a small orange stone.

The soul stone.

Natasha and Clint exchanged a glance before moving forward together. Their hands covered the stone simultaneously. The orange about them flickered then vanished.

*****

A gasping breath tore through the the one still bodies at the bottom of the soul stone's sacrifice cliff.

They woke to rain on a planet that had not felt it's touch for millennia. They woke to see the first small sprouts of plants forcing their way through the soil about where they had fallen. They woke to a world in change, all because, in the end, they had fallen together.

They would find the guardian gone when they finally returned to the summit of the cliff. Nothing left to mark his presence. Had both of them not seen him; not had him speak to them; Clint and Natasha might have thought him some type of hallucination or horrid nightmare. The arch at the entrance to the cliff had collapsed. Leaving a mass of rubble for he two of them to scrabble over on their return to the ship.

They left Vormir as they had come to it. Together. Knowing that sometimes "whatever it takes," ment not just a willingness to sacrifice, but a willingness to be there for another. To be a true friend.

To fall together.

The End


End file.
